I firmly believe that E10 is a total scam. Anecdotally, doing pure highway driving, I get 8-10% less fuel economy with E10 than E0 (pure gasoline), so what's the point? This has been consistently the case with the last 3 cars I've owned (V8 RWD, turbo I4 AWD, regular I4 FWD). Losing 10% fuel economy for the privilege (more accurately, the forced subsidy of corn growers in many states) of driving E10 makes no sense to me. Just water down my gasoline by 10%--same effect but water is cheaper than ethanol...

And with the IoT, companies will have to accept a 20+ year lifespan on their products, including security updates. Sadly, it will take some very nasty malware infections (e.g. your Nest thermostat is sending out phishing requests) and chaos before governments around the world come up with such an agreement & international laws on the matter...

True, that's likely coming down the road. But there are a LOT of people who's access to broadband is still at work or the local library--assuming they even bother. The reason M$ decided against this, at this time, is because there are a LOT of places in the US (let alone the world) that still don't have broadband, or have crazy restrictions like 2GB/month that you'd associate with cellular networks (e.g. Alaska, Canadian Territories).

Well, to start off, the smart TV manufacturer would consider buying a bulk contract with AT&T, Verizon, or other nationwide cellular company--your viewing habits are worth that much to them! Of course, in due time, the newest "Smart TV Enhanced" firmware will require you to pay a monthly fee for said "new services & features", especially on your "old smart TV"...

What, you mean the "Goldstar" part of LG? If you remember any Goldstar computer products from the late-80s to mid-90s, they were absolute crap. How they ever surpassed Samsung & Sony is beyond me, especially given the "Lucky" part of "LG" is a chemical company that even makes toothpaste & laundry detergents! ("Lucky Goldstar" became "LG" in 1995...)

Nothing says that even after "dumb TVs" are no longer available, that you can't turn a "smart TV" into a dumb one. It's called not giving access to your WiFi (or Ethernet) network. Done, problem solved... Even then, there are plenty of households without their own WiFi and plenty of others who don't even have broadband Internet (whether due to local unavailability or eschewing technology), so having such a disconnected TV refuse to even show video over HDMI would be untenable.

Of course, it's only a matter of time before a TV manufacturer puts in a SIM card into a TV and broadcasts over cellular... On the other hand, such additional traffic (pings, heartbeats, phoning home with customer spying info), from millions more devices on mobile networks may not be practical for quite a while.

So, let's say society changes and a future court rules that "life" sentences are "cruel & unusual punishment" (as described by the US Constitution). You'd have chaos as all the lifers who only got life suddenly are released. A defined time, including "effectively life" (e.g. a 150 year sentence for a 71-y/o Bernie Madoff) now would need to be considered on a case-by-case basis--or at least the Supremes would have to come up with some sort of mathematical formula for "effectively life", which they generally don't like to do...

Those are the downgrade rights offered by Win 7/8 Pro to XP Pro (and even 2000 Pro). My post was about new PCs of the time, where the only OS available was XP as it was the only reasonable choice on that hardware. Remember that since Vista was such a dog on Atom hardware (only consumers of Atom at the time were netbooks) & given Microsoft's uncertain future for Windows 7 at the time (Microsoft was hoping it would pay off), XP Home was the only sane choice on 2009-2010 era netbooks. In fact, Windows 7 Starter was a stripped-down Windows 7 requiring lower hardware...

XP was legally sold on netbooks made as late as October 22, 2010 ( http://windows.microsoft.com/e... ). Those computers were still in the sales pipeline into early 2011.

Really? So a $100,000 medical device, robot in a factory, or SCADA platform running a $100 copy of XP (well, $200 if Pro, less if XP Embedded) can't "cost the lives of the user"??? I wouldn't want to be in front of a dental x-ray machine with a copy of XP that is now sending spam or worse, being used to cause harm to users... Ever hear of the Therac-25 accidents of the mid-80s? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Unfortunately, easier said than done. All of these have unbelievably steep learning curves to do anything reasonable. Ironically, my interest in programming started with my TI-99/4A in 1983-1985. I used to get magazines that would provide programs (that I'd spend an hour-plus typing in) to see how it works. I didn't really know the limits of that machine, so it was cool to see what I could do with it--and how I could change the programs to do certain things...

Unfortunately, with Dreamspark tools above, there's no "just start coding & see what happens". There's no really basic / for kids "how to make fun little programs with Visual Studio" that come with Dreamspark. I don't see a child using a $60 book from SAMS or Microsoft Press ("Learn Visual Studio in 24 Hours!") as 1) the books aren't aimed for them, 2) the cost to buy one is at a price point questioned by most parents.

iPads are even worse... You can't program for them on them (not that you'd want to attempt such a thing with the on-screen keyboard) and you need an expensive Mac to do so, tethered to your iPad. (So there's no immediate gratification...)

Kids nowadays see what their computers are capable of--by playing video games that test the limits of their PCs. Why write a little program that draws some lines when the child could play a video game that's much more visually stimulating & engaging???

Let's see... I'm going to trust that an appliance vendor, some of whom have yet to add an OS (Linux, Android, etc.) to their devices, will properly create the security for said IoT device? Cisco is clearly looking to become such a vendor, and I don't think they're prepared to deal with the consequences & unbelievably protracted support schedules--way longer than Microsoft's ~10 year lifecycle for Windows and Office. Ultimately, will my IoT fridge that I buy today continue to work properly 20+ years down the line or will it be pwned long before then? (I suspect the latter...)

The reality is that a company with no such device experience (e.g. Amana, Kenmore, etc.) may contract out the security portion of the firmware to Cisco, but will Cisco continue to support the device's security for decades to come? In reality, people don't replace their home appliances, HVAC systems, and security systems all that often... I doubt Cisco is putting out many security patches for their devices from 1994, or if anyone even has the experience (let alone the desire) to create patches today for Linux 1.1.x security holes...

Except that nuclear reactors are, by regulation, among the most-documented entities on earth. From functionality to maintenance logs to upgrades, nuclear plants & their owners are extreme documenters--to decrease liability and meet government regulation. You don't hear stories of nuclear reactors in places like the US, Canada, UK, Western Europe, etc., with "documentation problems" or knowledge transfer continuity. (Pay people to stay to do an easy job & they will...) Sure, a part schematic may be on paper as opposed to stored electronically, but they'll have multiple copies onsite, a few copies at the power utility offsite, and at the NRC or other national nuclear regulatory agency--and everyone who should know where those copies are, do know... And that documentation would be designed so that anyone with the requisite engineering knowledge & skills should be able to read it...

Nuclear plants are not run like IT shops--and thank God for that...